Joe Bowen had a cough. It was buried somewhere deep in his chest, emerging through rumbling bursts that shattered the pre-game silence at Air Canada Centre, echoing across the rafters from his seat in the press box.

It had been three weeks, and it had become a stubborn opponent to his preferred home remedy.

“See, if you gargle with Crown Royal, you have to gargle correctly — you've really got to get it down to the voice box area,” Bowen said. “You gargle with it repeatedly. But you don't spit it out.”

He coughed again.

A cough and a cold is a common occurrence in a Canadian January, but for Bowen, the long-time radio voice of the Toronto Maple Leafs, it is more than a mere nuisance. It is an impediment for his work, which demands hours of animated and detailed discussion.

Phlegm is a barrier. It can affect his range. It saps the strength from his voice, and it limits how often he can interact with colour analyst Jim Ralph...

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